On the same day that British Gas announces nicely expanded profits (at a time of falling raw material prices), a hospital trust is found to have dramatically failed it's A&E customers. Another no-score draw then, in the private vs public sector championship.
If profit motivated behemoths supplying essential services (like energy or banking or telecoms) might seem tempted to exploit their market domination, public service behemoths supplying essential services (like health care) seem just as likely to fail to provide good service. Perhaps the common factor is scale. Smaller outfits find it less easy to achieve and exploit market dominance or perpetuate catstrophic incompetence. Maybe E F Schumacher was right after all - small(er) is not only beautiful, but more efficient, the disbenefits (to consumers) of massive scale outweighing the benefits.
Climate change (or a meteor strike) may have seen off the last lot of behemoths. So what will it take this time?
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